


Standing in the dust

by Yossk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14671746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yossk/pseuds/Yossk
Summary: It’s funny, Natasha thinks,that I should be the one left standing.





	Standing in the dust

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory post-Infinity War feelings splurge coming up. Spoilers abound, obviously. Please don't read unless you've seen Infinity War!
> 
> (Apologies to anyone awaiting more Agents of Shield / Bobbi Morse - It's nearly there, but Infinity War temporarily stole my muse...)

_It’s funny_ , Natasha thinks, _that I should be the one left standing._

There’s a body laid out on the ground in front of them, grey and lifeless, and it makes her stomach turn and bile rise in her throat to see the hole in his head, the mangled circuits that used to be a person. Because Vision’s body is not just one death, it’s all they have to show for a billion trillion piles of dust, and it’s impossible to comprehend, that much death, an impossible concept for the brain to keep hold of. Even for her.

This must be it. This must be the end of the Universe.

But Natasha’s still breathing, chest rising and falling rapidly, and if she’s going to throw up she must still be alive. There’s space for that neuron to fire in her brain, at least.

_Like a cockroach. Every time the world falls apart, I find myself standing in the wreckage._

But not just standing, she’s shoulder to shoulder with _Captain America_. And that’s the funny part, that this paragon of virtue, this symbol of American patriotism, he’s looking at her now, looking at her like she might know what to do. And she’s not thinking of him as _Steve,_ that’s not who they are here. They’re Captain America and the Black Widow, still standing at the end of the world.

She’s rode through life on a wave of death and destruction and what does it matter now, here at the end?

“Steve.” Her voice is hoarse, like she’s been screaming for hours, full of anger and rage and despair. But she did scream, she remembers now, on the other side of this divide, in what will forever be known as _before._ (But does that mean there’ll be an _after_? How can there be an _after_ when this is the end?). Trapped in a prison of rock and helpless as she’s ever been. She’d screamed for power, to give herself the strength to break free.

It seems like another lifetime.

Steve blinks, as though he too had been waiting for the end and is surprised that it has not yet come. They’ve been standing here in silence for what must be minutes now, but it doesn’t feel strange. In fact, it’s the most natural thing in the world to be frozen like statues whilst the world crumbles to dust at their feet.

Natasha clears her throat, summoning anything she has left, of permanence and endurance and _doing what needs to be done._ She can’t draw the line now, between Natasha and Natalia, between _a_ Black Widow and _the_ Black Widow, there’s not enough of either of them left. But there is this, her one remaining thread of self, that keeps going and going and going, even when she wishes it would stop.

She clings onto it.

“Steve. Take him to the lab.” She doesn’t say to whom. She doesn’t know to whom. There’s a sixteen year old force of nature who could even now be a pile of dust on a granite floor. “It’s his only chance.”

Okoye stands then, and something passes between them, barely a nod, an acknowledgement that there is still something they can do. Steve blinks again, and then shakes himself, pulling together all the parts of his soul that are screaming after Bucky into the abyss. He nods once, lifts Vision’s lifeless body into his arms, and lopes off over the field.

“We must find our dead. And more importantly, our wounded.” Okoye speaks, and Natasha is glad she is the one to say it. There is power in her voice, hope buoying it.

Natasha nods once in agreement and looks around, taking stock of those still standing. Rhodey stumbles to the ground across the clearing, his search for Sam exhausted. Bruce is still high above in his Hulkbuster suit, head hanging and expression obscured. And then there's Thor and the talking Racoon. She’ll work that out later.

“Bruce?”

“Mm.” He looks up, vaguely, as if he’s surprised to see them still standing there.

“Do you need a hand?”

“What?” He looks around in bewilderment, and then realises what she’s talking about, “No.” He stumbles out of the suit, landing hard on his hands and knees in the dirt.

“If there are people still alive, then we must find them.” Thor’s voice penetrates the quiet with a strength and a power it didn’t have before. He’s no longer the man they knew, but there’s no time for that now, there’s no time for anything. The Universe is still ending.

They scatter through the trees, stumbling in shock and horror, two steps removed from the world around them.

Natasha sees so much death. She never intended to be a soldier, not like this. Not wading into battles and fighting a war. And what’s worse is the death they can’t see, the piles of dust already blending with the mud and dirt and blood, the green fields of Wakanda churned beyond recognition.

There are living as well, more grey-faced souls wondering the fields as the sun sets and they blend into the grey of twilight. The temperature drops and the grass becomes damp and they just keep going and going, set off like clockwork toys to work until they just. Stop.

…

Natasha stumbles back into the palace as the sky begins to lighten again. The Earth is still turning, the sun is still rising, and she can’t bear it.

“Nat?”

Bruce is waiting for her down a dimly-lit corridor, as if he’d known she’d come. Like he’s been waiting for the last two days, like they’ve both been waiting, for more than an awkward acknowledgement across a crowded room.

She wants to scream at him _It’s been three years. Where the hell have you been?!_

She wants to apologise, and it’s not quite a lie because she’d do it again, but she’s still sorry she hurt him.

But it’s too late now.

Natasha’s never a coward, she’d never let anyone call her a coward, but she can’t do this now, not with the spectre of Vision and Sam and Wanda and Bucky and Tony and who knows who else. Her mind is too full of anger and despair even to mourn, and she wants to act ( _she has to act_ ), she has to find Thanos and they have to turn this back.

They have to save the world.

But she doesn’t know where to start.

She shakes her head and turns away, walking quickly and then running, running as fast and as far as she can, out of the palace and across the grass, pre-dawn dew soaking through her shoes. The air is _cold_ , colder than she remembers, the wind attacking her face like needles and turning her fingers numb. She collapses in the woods, how far she doesn’t know, and the sun is still rising and why won’t it stop? Why won’t it just stop?

_The Universe ended_ she thinks _and this is the other side._

The sun is turning pink, and she hides from it under the trees, hides from the breathtaking beauty of it, the golden light starting to spread over the Wakandan countryside. It’s damp and still grey under the canopy, quiet and still as though the even the local fauna is in mourning. And, perhaps they are, Natasha thinks for a moment. How could she tell?

She threads her fingers through a clump of grass, squeezing and tearing, trying to hold on to the Earth as it spins beneath her feet.

There’s a crack of twigs breaking, a rustle of someone running through the undergrowth towards her. She freezes.

“Nat?”

_Go away_.

Bruce stops about twenty yards away, out of sight behind a large tree which isn’t quite an oak. Natasha can see it out of the corner of her eye, see the bark, twisted and gnarled. It’s seen lifetime after lifetime flutter and burn and turn to dust in the land surrounding it. Hundreds, thousands, millions, now.

“Nat, I don’t…” His voice is soft and hoarse, everything falling off at the edges. She hears him take a breath, “I don’t want to be alone.”

She doesn’t respond, but she feels something start to crack. Shock. She can self-diagnose as well as the next person. They’re all wandering around, dazed and confused, the full magnitude of what’s happened sitting on the surface, unable to penetrate the deepest recesses of their minds. She feels another layer of defence slip away, puts a hand over her mouth and tries not to vomit.

“Nat, I’ll…” Her eyes drift shut. She can picture him, standing there in the dust, threading his fingers together and looking anywhere but at her, “I’ll go if you want me to. Just say something and I’ll leave.”

Bile is rising in her throat, and she swallows frantically. Her hand has started shaking and it’s Wanda, of all of them, that rises to the forefront of her mind. Wanda, who was not alone until she was, until she died on her own with the man she loved dead twice over at her feet. And Natasha can’t help but think she could have done better, could have fought harder and been smarter, and at the very least have been there to bear witness.

Bruce is treading carefully through the trees towards her. He’s taken her silence as acquiescence. His footfalls are loud, the echo of cracked twigs bouncing from trunk to trunk. He sits down opposite her, trailing his fingers through the dirt, his eyes lost and pained and far away, and she wonder if she looks like that to him. Like she’s somehow not of this world and that she’s struggling to comprehend it.

Natasha puts her hand down on the ground, pressing a fist into the dirt in order to still it. Bruce watches, and suddenly she wants noise and motion and rage and he’s too still and too quiet.

“You and me at the end of the world.” Her mouth twists as she forces the words out, her voice hard and hoarse.

Bruce’s mouth lifts slightly, “Like cockroaches.”

The words surprise her into looking at him, her gaze sweeping over his face and then boring into his eyes. He’s changed far more in the three years they’ve been apart then in the three years she knew him. It’s different, the way he speaks, the way he moves. She purses her lips, and raises an eyebrow, “When did you stop hating yourself?”

It’s Bruce’s turn to look surprised. His mouth opens slightly, and then closes again. His voice is soft, “When did you start?”

Natasha looks around, up at the sky, slowly turning from pink to blue. She shrugs, “About twelve hours ago.”

He looks down at the ground and she can see that his hands have started shaking too. Or, maybe, they always were and she just wasn’t paying enough attention. He reaches into his pocket, and she can see the outline of his fingers feeling for something, turning it over out of sight. He goes to start a sentence several times before any sound comes out.

“Clint?”

Natasha’s mouth tightens, and she shakes her head minutely.

“Nat—“

“Three percent.” She interrupts him, her voice going sharp.

“What?”

“There’s five of them. There’s a three percent chance they all made it.” She opens up the fist she’s been holding on the ground, presses her palm flat into the damp earth. “How can I—“ She stops, and her breathing is slightly ragged, “They’re children. How can I live with myself if I survived and they didn’t?”

She’s been trying to hold it back for hours now, an image implanted in her mind as clear as day, of Lila and Cooper fading away, of Laura screaming as Nate dissolves in her arms. Bruce’s eyebrows furrow in the middle as he watches her. He could offer platitudes, tell her how much they’re going to need her, whichever way the dice have rolled. But she knows that, and he knows she knows it. She’s spoiling for a fight and he’s not going to give her one.

The phone in his pocket is hard, pressing unforgivingly against his thigh. He pulls it out and holds it across the breach between them.

She looks at it. She’s not a coward, she’s never been a coward. Her hand reaches out to take it of its own accord.

As their fingers touch, Bruce holds on for half a second, “Three and an eighth.”

Natasha nods slightly, and then dials the number.

 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
